The Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure is something I came up with about four years ago, basing it on a tea towel I have that features a map of Wales. There are some 65 places listed on the map with no particular reason for their being there but for the fact they are (in some cases, barely) located within Wales’ borders. They aren’t necessarily tourist spots, nor areas of historical significance, they’re just places – places in Wales.

Because I live in Wales, and Wales is not very big, they are also places that aren’t terribly far away. Four years ago, still zipping around on my Honda CBF600SA, I was eager to find excuses to go on road trips, but had very little money (some things never change). Wales is small enough that I’m able to get just about anywhere and back in a day, so no hotel costs. Additionally, the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure seemed like a good way to confront some enduring bitterness I had developed toward my experiences in Wales.

I undertook a few trips and wrote them up on TMO but never managed to develop any sort of organized plan for tackling all the locations. Additionally, I felt a little overwhelmed at the scale of my initial project: I had told myself I would write intelligent, witty, and flowing prose for each location then compile the whole thing into a book. The idea burned itself out pretty quickly. I tried to revive it a year or so later but again let things fall apart because in my head I was trying to develop a narrative. But life doesn’t have a narrative.

So, I’ve decided to rework the Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure as a video project, with each visit serving as nothing more than a snapshot: “Here’s what this place was like on the day I went there.”

I’ve created a list of all the places on the map and put them in alphabetical order, which means that Aberaeron was first. I rode there earlier this summer, when I had the Ducati Multistrada 950 in my possession, but have only now had time to put together the video. I really hope you like it. I dream crazy dreams of being able to create super sexy videos full of swooping drone shots, but at present everything is done with a Google Pixel phone and GoProHERO Session. I hope you can appreciate, then, how proud I am of the final shot in the video.

Related to the challenges of video, I’d like to make an extra pitch for the TMO Patreon page here. The Great Welsh Tea Towel Adventure is very much the sort of thing I want to be doing more of, but it does cost money. Not much – usually not more than two full tanks of dino juice, depending on the bike I’m riding – but some. Not to mention the nominal cost associated with packing some sandwiches and a flask of tea.

If you’d like to see me doing more of this, please consider becoming a patron. If you are already a patron, thank you. I love you.